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“the deer trophy”

You had gone somewhere south
to lay challenge to borders of your heart;
Cuz’ the sun outside, here, is never bright
enough
and this allowed you to fix your eyes upon me
with a constancy you never could endure
somewhere else,
somewhere south,
where you were busy counting nickels,
challenging the borders of your heart.
It’s not that I am so attractive,
although I am attractive.
But you never look away. Never.
Even when you are dancing, you stay so close, as if you are hooked,
but not like a fish— more like a deer;
But not a full bodied deer either. You have your body. It’s a good body. You use it well.
But you wear that silly deer trophy;
It’s neck bowing backward;
Your spine turning forward;
Your plastic eyes still fixed on me—
but not like a sun, or even like headlights—
but as though I have become a silly dangling lure of neon rubber and sharp shiny metal.
The taxidermist made a mistake.
The taxidermist put fish eyes in this once proud buck.
And your own head is somewhere else still.
Somewhere south,
challenging the borders of your heart.
Meanwhile, your tap dancing heels are digging into my own boundaries.
I would shoot you and stuff you—
if someone else
hadn’t beaten me to the trigger.